Armstrong Plans Rebuild at Stripling & Cox Site

[IMGCAP(1)]FORT WORTH-Pittsburgh-based Armstrong Development Properties Inc., making the close when others could not, has gotten its hands on a prized 3.7-acre piece in the densely retail-populated Camp Bowie corridor in southwest Fort Worth. The shuttered Stripling & Cox’s flagship store will be razed and replaced with a 23,100-sf strip of high-end retail.

Interior abatement on the 110,743-sf two-story department store is now under way. Nathan Wood, first vice president for CB Richard Ellis in Dallas, tells GlobeSt.com the store, which is a rarity because it has a basement, and connected parking garage will come down at year’s end or early 2009 to ready the land for the rebuild, the Shops at Camp Bowie. He’s not discussing the all-in project cost, but the property as it now stands is assessed at $2.25 million and current construction prices for higher end retail have been topping $200 per sf in the region.

Wood and CBRE sales assistant Ryan Byrne will unveil the project at October’s ICSC convention in San Antonio. Armstrong’s local brokers, who also negotiated the acquisition, are in talks with a bank for a 37,820-sf ground-leased pad site at the Hilldale Road traffic signal. The other pad site, 21,000 sf, at the Ridglea Avenue signal is reserved for a 7,500-sf restaurant to anchor the project. If all goes as planned, the Shops at Camp Bowie will open in late summer or early fall 2009.